Embodiments of the present invention relate to cloud-based notifications and, more specifically, to syndicated cloud-based notification as a service.
For many internet and intranet users, there is an overwhelming amount of content available online, which makes it difficult for users to determine which content matches their interests. Some websites partially address this problem by enabling subscriptions to their content.
The subscriptions take various forms. Some websites have subscription infrastructures that allow users to get email notifications when specific content has changed. Another common implementation is the use of Rich Site Summary (RSS) feeds, which allow users to subscribe to websites. Many website publishing applications include built-in tools or enable add-ons that automatically generate RSS feeds based on new content. An RSS client used by the user periodically polls the RSS feeds of each website to which a user is subscribed and notifies the user of new content.
These forms of notification have numerous drawbacks. They do not allow users to choose multiple ways to be notified. Rather, users are notified via email or through an application associated with their RSS clients. Further, users are unable to select specific categories of content for each website. As a result, a user must sort through unwanted content on websites to which he has subscribed, to identify the subset of that content that fits his interests.
In short, existing notification systems are inconvenient and fail over-inclusive in the content they deliver.